Initial Ideas: For World Literature, I will probably end up teaching “Things Fall Apart” and “Oedipus Rex” so I might try to focus on the themes of power in both works and the tragic hero.
For American Literature, I will probably have to teach “The Crucible” and “Their Eyes are Watching God” so the theme that my CT suggests I focus on is identity but she couches it in terms of a person’s name and how important that is to their identity to make it more concrete. I am also thinking about teaching “Othello” as part of American Literature and this theme can apply as well as race to create a bridge to “Huck Finn” which my CT will be teaching.
Thematic Unit: Disaster and the Human Spirit Eurpoe Unit: English 10 Organizing Questions
-To what extent do individuals have control over their lives? What role does chance, choice, or fate play?
-How can extreme situations affect one’s identity, actions, and attitudes?
-How can people (especially young people) deal with the circumstances and situations life throws at them? -When life throws bad situations at people –especially people with few resources – do the principles of right and wrong in dealing with them still apply? -Can fiction tell the truth?
Goals
-Familiarize students with works of literature and art from Europe and the ideas and history in context -students thinking deeply and critically about personal disaster and larger scale disaster and the lessons we can learn from hearing/reading stories
-Investigate generic conventions and mediums and to understand the differences and to create works of their own
List of Possible Materials and Supplementary Texts Fiction -Night - Elie Wiesel -The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Nonfiction -The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Jean Dominique de Bauby -Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster - Svetlana Alexievich (NPR Audio Excerpt)
Poetry Musée des Beaux Arts - W.H. Auden
"Into the Ark" - Wislawa Szymborska
"The Second Coming" - W.B. Yeats (Ireland)
Art Francisco Goya - Disasters of War Series Pieter Bruegel - Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Caravaggio - Crucifixion of St. Peter
Music Grosse Fuge - Beethoven
Quartet for the End of Time - Messiaen Requiem - Mozart Requiem - Ligeti Prelude to Tristan und Isolde - Wagner Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
Initial Ideas:
For World Literature, I will probably end up teaching “Things Fall Apart” and “Oedipus Rex” so I might try to focus on the themes of power in both works and the tragic hero.
For American Literature, I will probably have to teach “The Crucible” and “Their Eyes are Watching God” so the theme that my CT suggests I focus on is identity but she couches it in terms of a person’s name and how important that is to their identity to make it more concrete. I am also thinking about teaching “Othello” as part of American Literature and this theme can apply as well as race to create a bridge to “Huck Finn” which my CT will be teaching.
Thematic Unit: Disaster and the Human Spirit
Eurpoe Unit: English 10
Organizing Questions
-To what extent do individuals have control over their lives? What role does chance, choice, or fate play?
-How can extreme situations affect one’s identity, actions, and attitudes?
-How can people (especially young people) deal with the circumstances and situations life throws at them?
-When life throws bad situations at people –especially people with few resources – do the principles of right and wrong in dealing with them still apply?
-Can fiction tell the truth?
Goals
-Familiarize students with works of literature and art from Europe and the ideas and history in context
-students thinking deeply and critically about personal disaster and larger scale disaster and the lessons we can learn from hearing/reading stories
-Investigate generic conventions and mediums and to understand the differences and to create works of their own
List of Possible Materials and Supplementary Texts
Fiction
-Night - Elie Wiesel
-The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Nonfiction
-The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Jean Dominique de Bauby
-Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster - Svetlana Alexievich (NPR Audio Excerpt)
Poetry
Musée des Beaux Arts - W.H. Auden
"Into the Ark" - Wislawa Szymborska
"The Second Coming" - W.B. Yeats (Ireland)
Art
Francisco Goya - Disasters of War Series
Pieter Bruegel - Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
Caravaggio - Crucifixion of St. Peter
Music
Grosse Fuge - Beethoven
Quartet for the End of Time - Messiaen
Requiem - Mozart
Requiem - Ligeti
Prelude to Tristan und Isolde - Wagner
Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
Film
-Night and Fog
-The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
-Paper Clips
List of Possible Learning Activities